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[orca-list] Pdf accessibility in Linux was Re: Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

Thanks for that info, Don.  Bringing this to the list for anyone who
would care to chime in:

I remember seeing an application called Evince gtk which set it apart
from Evince.  Has anyone been able to gather whether or not it is any
more accessible than Evince proper?  Also, can anyone confirm that
what it does is just put up a picture of the text in the pdf document
instead of actual textual characters which a screen reader could read?
 I never got around to testing it myself because Ubuntu wanted to yank
out Evince proper in order to replace it with Evince GTK.  Evince GTK
was not listed as a Gnome dependency whereas the original version of
it was and yanking it made my system want to go ahead and yank just
about all of Gnome with it.  As that was a production system, I did
not relish the prospect of breaking it just to satisfy my curiosity.

As for Acroread, I am seriously considering contacting the
accessibility person at Adobe using the e-mail Don provides below.
Adobe has made some efforts in the past to get their documetns
accessible and they have succeeded very nicely in Windows.  I remember
how I used to dread pdf's about 10 years ago or so.  These days, it's
just another document type to me.  It would be nice if we could make
that happen for us in Linux as well.

Alex M

On 8/2/12, Donald Marang <donald marang verizon net> wrote:

I do not know.  We can ask the accessibility person at Adobe.  I do not
know how much power he has.  He tries to advocate getting accessibility
issues with Adobe products resolved.  Most of the time, it seems new
features and schedules win out!  This position used to be filled by Kirk
Killpatrick, but since the feed never has a name anymore, I have no idea
if he still works at this position.  The email is:

access adobe com

I do not have much faith in the evince application getting access to the
content either!  The last I looked, it is an image viewer designed to
view PostScript images.  It's developers do not seem interested in
adding accessibility, especially when it would require a complete rewrite!


*Don Marang*
Vinux Package Development Coordinator - vinuxproject.org
<http://www.vinuxproject.org/>


On 8/2/2012 12:05 AM, Alex Midence wrote:

I wonder why Acroread which is the package from Adobe available in
Linux is inaccessible.  It's in QT.  All the menus are accessible.
All the dialogs are too.  You can even set up the accessibility setup
assistant Adobe put in there for you to be able to read pdf's
accessibly.  Then, you only get one line from it though.  I can't
figure out why that is.  I tried it in Ubuntu Precise and I can't
imagine things are any better in Quantal.

Alex M


On 8/1/2012 9:49 PM, Speedy wrote:

Adobe won out with the PDF format because even though it was cross
platform, it reliably, exactly could reproduce the same page layout
and fonts on screen and when printed from any platform.  This is a
huge deal for most corporations and schools!  It was a huge,
difficult problem a decade ago!  I do not think this is possible with
a HTML document today.

Adobe has had a stranglehold on their proprietary  PDF format over
the years.  They have submitted the basic PDF format as a Open
International Standard.  Of course, they continue to add proprietary
additions to the product, which they usually submit as proposed
extensions to the standard.  Note they intend to continue to tie you
to their products to use the proprietary extensions.  In the next
release of Microsoft Word, it should allow you to open and edit and
resave a PDF document.

*Don Marang*
Vinux Package Development Coordinator - vinuxproject.org
<http://www.vinuxproject.org/>


On 8/1/2012 9:54 PM, Alex Midence wrote:

On 8/1/2012 8:33 PM, Kyle wrote:

I never said that anyone should feel pressured to use Linux or lose
their jobs. It would

<snip>

Neither did I.  I meant that they didn't know that Linux would
provide them with an accessible way to view ODF files.   The
application that writes them, Open Office, at the time, was not
accessible in Windows.  So, they thought they were going to be out
of a job because the file format they were going to use was made by
an inaccessible application.  Now, do you understand?  As for being
forced to switch to Windows, Mac or Linux, I mean, you use whatever
system is in use by the company you work for.  You don't always have
a choice in the matter.  If the boss uses Windows for his business
and you want a job there, guess what you have to know how to use so
you can work with the rest of the team?  Again, if he uses Linux,
same thing.  I've even heard of people being obligated to use a
particular desktop system because that's what the company used and
the sysadmins were invlexible.  I seem to recall someone on this
list not being able to take advantage of a job opportunity because
KDE was the system of choice at the place he applied at.  At home,
personally, I prefer using LInux for some things and Windows for
others.  If I had an iDevice, I'd use it for specific things it
worked better with.  I am not a developer so, I am more concerned
with using software than writing it.  My contributions to open
source and free software are in the area of helping with questions
where I can and writing the odd documentation file or two.  All that
stuff about litigations and one company controling this or that does
not concern me because I don't code.  I admit it would suck if an
app I like got screwed over by something like that but I don't know
that I'd be up in arms about it unless it was crucial to my
livelihood or something.  I believe Adobe controls PDF because they
created it.  That, and they have made a name for themselves in the
area of creative production software.  Their reputation in the
industry is well-deserved and their software isn't priced too
highly, in my opinion.  I use it at work and am very satisfied with it.

Alex M
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Alex Midence

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